7/7 - Rome (Part 2)
I was tired and so decided to do some data collection on the proportion of air-conditioned trains on Line A of the Rome Metro. Starting at 3pm: No aircon, aircon, no aircon, no aircon, aircon, no aircon, no aircon. How depressing.
Spanish Steps
Fountain in front of the Steps
Cock Bus
Pillar in Piazza di Spagna
Fontana di Trevi
This time the free software cocked up and I managed to tweak the other one.
If you throw one coin into the fountain, you will return to Rome. If you throw two coins into it, you will fall in love there. I threw three coins inside, so I'm curious what will happen. Maybe it will be like the time I did everything at Suntec City's Fountain of Wealth in reverse, and then got bad luck a few months later.
A shop near the fountain sold soft drinks for €1 a can and €1,30 a bottle. This was probably the cheapest non-supermarket price in Rome, and at a prime spot too.
I saw a police cock car. Maybe the police in Rome are cock.
Temple of Hadrian
Pantheon
Dome
Altar
Dome
The stitching software got confused so the stich is screwed up. I tried attaching control points manually but it was very hard and didn't work.
My stitching software has problems reading EXIF data fromsome of the shots. I wonder if it's the fault of the French idiot again.
An information panel informed me that 22 holes in the floor (2 of which I found) drained rainwater. Which made me wonder why I'd never wondered how the place was drained given that there was a hole in the roof.
I found the request for respecting the sanctity of the place galling, since they showed no respect to the pagans when they took over and reconverted it. This is especially so since everyone knows it as the Pantheon and not Santa Maria ad Martyres. This is the same reason why a request for respect in the Ayasofya mosque (at least before 1935) would've been equally laughable.
Obelisk outside Pantheon
The nicest fountain/water dispenser I saw in Rome, and maybe the whole of Italy (maybe even Europe, though water dispensers were scarce in other parts of it).
Even the drain covers in Rome are stamped "SPQR".
Throughout Rome, I kept seeing a street performer dressed as a golden mummy. I wonder if it was always the same guy. In Piazza Navona there was also Charlie Chaplin and a Grim Reaper (with sickle).
Fountain in Piazza Navona
Fontana dei Fiumi (Fountain of the rivers - 1 per quarter of the world)
2 of the rivers
2 of the rivers
Fountain in Piazza Navona
Really cock car, and the odd controls
Sant'Antonio dei Portghesi
Run down building beside Sant'Antonio dei Portghesi
The guidebook claimed that Italian trains were efficient. Wth - which is exactly how anyone who has ever taken an Italian train would respond. The majority of trains were delayed - I saw one delayed by 2 hrs and one by 4 hrs; hell, there was even a column either for "ritardo" (delay) or "effective [departure/arrival] time" on the signboards displaying train arrival/departure times, instead of this information being under the remarks column.
someone claimed that I should've gotten a rail pass because this would save me countless time in queues, since the ticket machines were only for short distances. Obviously this information was very outdated (1993 or whatever), for when I went to Italy I found that the queues for counters were very long compared to those for machines, which could process ticket orders for all domestic travel. Further, Italian rail is relatively cheap (because it's slow, lousy and always late), and the more expensive trains (most decent ones) require you to queue to reserve a seat anyway, which together conspire to defeat the point of a rail pass (for some reason reservations can't be made with the machine).
For some reason, all Italian train tickets need to be validated, even the dated ones. Maybe this is just a ploy to fine people for nothing. Or perhaps it's because the trains are delayed so often that people miss the trains for which they have reservations all the time and have to change them.
For dinner, Andrew and I went to a place recommended not only be someone, but by our guestbook. We had a plate of antipasti, which we filled ourselves from the bar. It was not bad, though some of the items were obviously better than others. The spaghetti vongole had a very strong taste, having the most garlic and herbs of any vongole I've ever had (too much garlic, in fact, and I think a lot of butter too - it was too rich; we noticed another woman who ordered vongole but wasn't eating it). The lobster linguine was alright, but it couldn't compare to the one in Crete. For our second courses, we had Fried Calamari and Prawns and Roast Pheasant. The calamari was the worst I'd ever had - very very tough - as bad as plastic, the toughest I'd ever eaten. Chewing it was like chewing rubber or chewing gum, and no matter how much I chewed I couldn't break most of the calamari rings down. The pheasant was nice, but it was literally swimming in olive oil. The flesh was also extremely tender, due to its probably being given an olive oil enema. The best bang for our buck that we had in Rome was pizza, followed by Chinese food.